I'm a staff writer at Forbes, where until recently I chased the super-rich for our Forbes 400 and World's Billionaires lists. Now I'm covering the consumer economy, writing about the big personalities reinventing retail. Before Forbes, I worked as a news reporter in the UK and my home country of Bermuda, a travel writer for Frommer's and an intern for CNN's Anderson Cooper while completing a master's degree at Columbia University. Got a story idea? Email me at coconnor@forbes.com.

When Sweden’s largest state-backed pension funds divested their holdings in Walmart last week, it was a move six years in the making — and one that followed lobbying efforts by Walmart’s own workers.

Sweden’s AP Funds, worth a combined $140 billion, decided to dump their Walmart stock on the advice of the country’s Ethical Council, which cited “systematic abuses of workers’ rights” as the main motivation, including the company’s stance against unions.

The decision came after years of pressure from Walmart employees, with the financial support of the United Food and Commercial Workers, the largest private sector union in the U.S.

That year, 100 employees involved in the union-backed pressure group Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart) first sat face-to-face with representatives from Scandinavian funds and others to address labor issues including fair pay and the right to organize.

“We met with the workers to get their view,” said Christina Kusoffsky Hillesöy, head of sustainable investments and communications for Sweden’s AP3 fund, one of the three to divest this month. “We have engaged with Walmart itself, and with other investors in the U.S. and abroad, but we had to get the story from all the different sides.”

OUR Walmart member Barbara Collins, who spent over seven years in the electronics department of the chain’s Placerville, Calif. store, was one of a handful of workers who shared her story with foreign investors.

“We talked about hours being cut back and workers being overloaded so we couldn’t give customers the service we love to give,” she said. “We let them know about understaffing, and workers getting hurt and not being able to put products on shelves.”

Collins was fired from Walmart this past June after going on a two-week strike, alleging unfair labor practices. Twelve of her fellow California associates were also let go during that month for similar infractions, a move that Kusoffsky Hillesöy described as troubling. “Workers shouldn’t be fired for raising their voice,” she said.

Walmart spokesperson Kory Lundberg said Collins’ job was terminated for a simple reason. “She was scheduled to work,” he said. “She didn’t show, and she didn’t call.”

Lundberg added that the company has no problem with its workers meeting with investors as long as it doesn’t interfere with their scheduled hours. “Associates on their own time are free to do whatever they like,” he said.

Walmart had no comment on the Swedish pension funds’ announcement. “We have millions of shares that are traded each day, and don’t comment when someone buys or sells shares,” said Randy Hargrove, a spokesperson for the retailer.

Kusoffsky Hillesöy and her team didn’t take their decision to divest lightly. One of Sweden’s pension funds, AP2, dumped about $27 million in Walmart stock back in 2006, the same year Norway’s public pension fund — the world’s largest – hit headlines in Europe for shedding its stake for ethical reasons. Representatives of the other three Swedish AP Funds chose to stick it out, hoping to improve labor conditions as shareholders.

Marshall accompanied a representative of Sweden’s Ethical Council and about a dozen other investors, including Brits and Americans, to Walmart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. in 2011 to meet with representatives from the big box giant to air their concerns. Since then, says Kusoffsky Hillesöy, not enough changed.

“We decided to try to engage with Walmart,” she said. “We’ve been trying for so many years and so little is happening. There’s discrimination, there’s very low pay, there are employees with bad working hours who are unable to live on their wages and have to take extra jobs. When you read reports about class action lawsuits, with employees suing, it’s quite alarming for an investor. We didn’t see the dialogue moving forward.”

As well as the AP Funds and Norway’s state-run pension fund, European investors who parted ways with Walmart in recent years include the Netherlands’ largest pension fund ABP and Dutch asset managers PGGM and Mn Services. Labor and human rights concerns, corruption allegations and environmental practices have all been mentioned as driving forces behind these Walmart sell-offs.

UFCW’s John Marshall contends that he’d prefer investors like these to remain on board as Walmart shareholders in hopes of enacting change from the inside.

“We understand when investors want to throw in the towel, but we really want owners to be involved,” he said.

Colby HarrisHarris, an employee at a Texas branch of Walmart, said he and fellow OUR Walmart members plan to keep the pressure on shareholders to stick up for workers’ rights, including a proposed wage increase to $25,000 a year.

“Even after nearly four years working at Walmart, I make only $9.30 an hour,” he said. “It isn’t enough for me to even cover the basics.”

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Good analogy of America’s economy too. They blame you before you have a chance to blame them as they then justify being an American traitor. Oh darn, now we have to hire cheaper immigrant labor all because of you.